Strong Vincent's final graduates celebrate 'bittersweet' night

First of 3 commencement exercises held for Erie high schools that will merge in 2017-18.

Ed Palattella @ETNPalattella

The members of the class of 2017 at Strong Vincent High School got used to hearing the phrase in the four years they walked the halls of the Erie School District's oldest high school.

"Once a Colonel, always a Colonel."

The phrase resonated even more deeply on Tuesday night, when Strong Vincent's 101 seniors in the class of 2017 graduated at the Bayfront Convention Center.

The seniors became the final Strong Vincent students to get diplomas in the 87-year-history of the high school, which the Erie School District is turning into a middle school in 2017-18 as part of its sweeping reconfiguration plan to merge three of its four high schools to deal with declining enrollment and precarious finances.

"Once a Colonel, always a Colonel."

On Tuesday night, when the seniors heard their principal, Scherry Prater, tell them that familiar phrase — after their school's namesake, the Civil War hero Col. Strong Vincent — the remarks echoed more than just as a pleasant reminder.

The remarks sounded more like a benediction, an exhortation, a call to arms — a plea for the graduates to draw strength from their high school memories as they plunge into adulthood, a time that, like the Erie School District and their senior year, is certain to be full of change.

"It is a bittersweet goodbye. It is difficult saying goodbye to you," Prater also told the students from the podium. She urged them to be ready for the unexpected.

"Change," Prater said, "favors the prepared mind."

Such a theme is sure to echo through the Bayfront Convention Center for the rest of the week, as the seniors at the Erie School District's three other high schools graduate, capping a tumultuous year in which the district is reorganizing to eliminate a projected deficit of $9.5 million in 2017-18.

On Wednesday, Central Career & Technical School will hold its final commencement exercises under that name. Central becomes Erie High School in 2017-18, the new home to students who now attend Strong Vincent and East High School, which is also turning into a middle school.

East's seniors graduate on Thursday, followed on Friday by students at Northwest Collegiate Academy, which will enroll more students at its building in 2017-18. Collegiate and Erie High will be the district's only high schools in 2017-18, a shift reflective of a school system that, as Superintendent Jay Badams told the students and the packed crowd on Tuesday night, educates half the students today than it did in 1965, when it enrolled 23,000.

"We can't avoid the inevitable," said Badams, who also reminded the students that "Strong Vincent is not closing. It will change."

The keynote speaker at Strong Vincent's commencement, Erie lawyer John Persinger, who is the Republican nominee for mayor, also urged the students not to fear failure and change. So did the student speakers, including the valedictorian, Rusyibihere "Harry" Debernard.

He arrived in the United States from the Tanzania, in east Africa, when he was about 8 years old. After graduating at the top of his class at Strong Vincent, he plans to study computer science and engineering at Pennsylvania State University in University Park. He called his decision to attend Strong Vincent "one of the best choices I ever made."

"We can't be afraid of taking chances," Debernard said.

After the hourlong ceremony ended, and after Debernard and his 100 classmates drifted out of the main hall, they met parents and friends in common area of the convention center. The cameras and smartphones flashed and the happy voices rose as the crowd pressed up against the stanchions to greet the latest, and the last, graduates of Strong Vincent High School.

The turnout surprised new graduate Daniel P. Blaney.

"This is a lot bigger than I expected," he said. "With the schools closing, it has brought a lot of people together.

"I couldn't be prouder," Blaney said, "to be a Colonel."

Ed Palattella can be reached at 870-1813 or by email. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/ETNpalattella.

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